F127 
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Michigan Central Train at falls View. 



NIAGARA FALLS 




f^^.-. 



General Passenger Department 

M ichigan ( Tentr al 

T/ie A^iccga-a Fails Rdute ' ''' 

CHICAGO,' X903 




MOV 27 1904 
D. of D, 



Rand, McNally & Company 

•PRIN'TERSJ.ND FJLRi.VERt. 

''fiHicApo . ^ [ \ . , 




The Horseshoe Fall as seen from Falls View Station. 



THE INFINITE VARIETY OF NIAGARA. 
Light and atmosphere, the magicians that take time to 
show us all the phases of any landscape, are peculiarly impor- 
tant as the interpreters of Niagara. The evening of our first 
day by the Falls will differ greatly from its morning ; neither 
will be quite like the evening or the morning of any other day ; 
and yet some indispensable aids to understanding may be long 
postponed. There must be strongest sunshine to show the 
full glory of the place — the refulgent possibilities of its opaline 
falling sheets, snow-white rising mists, and prismatic bows. 
But only a soft gray light can bring out the local colors of its 
horizontal waters and its woodlands, and only the shadow 
of storm clouds, the vehement temper of some of its rapids. 
Night brings her own revelations — lambent, ineffable in the 
full, and occult, apocalyptic in the dark of the moon. And 
while a powerful wind is needed to raise the clouds from the 
cataract in fullest volume, and to whip the crests of the rapids 
into farthest-flying scud, as long as any wind blows it may 
drive us back from some of the best points of view, drenched 
and blinded by torrents of vapor. 
5 




From the painting by Frank Brantley. 

Even if light and wind never altered at Niagara, it could 
iTot be seen in a day or a week. It must be studied in detail 
— in minutest detail — as well as in broad pictures. Its wealth 
in idyllic minor delights is as astonishing as its imperial largess 
in dramatic splendors. Its fabric of water, rock, and foliage 
is richly elaborate, as a cathedral's might be, if carved and 
damaskeened all over with intricate patterns and colors, each 
helping to explain the ideals of its builders. One whole side 
of Niagara's charm is unfelt unless every great and little pas- 
sage of its waters is learned by heart, and every spur and recess 
of its shores, and especially of its islands, is lovingly explored. 

Moreover, the eye alone can not really perceive any high 
beauty of any sort. It needs the help of emotion, and the 
right kind of emotion develops slowly. True sight means the 
deep, delicate, and complete sensations that result, not from 
the shock of surprise, but from the reverent, intelligent sub- 
mittal of sense and soul to the special scheme that the great 
Artifex has wrought and the special influence it exerts. We 
can not see anything in this way if we hurry. Above all, we 
can not see Niagara, the world's wonder, which is not a single 
wonder and yet is a single creation complete in itself — a 
6 




The Diifferin Islands. 

volume of wonders bound compactly together and set apart 
between spacious areas of plain, as though nature had said, 
" Hera is a piece of art too fine, too individual, to be built into- 
any panorama, to need any environment, except the dignity of 
isolation." Such a volume must indeed be studied page by 
page ; but it must also be read so often that it will leave us- 
the memory of a harmonious whole as well as of a thousand 
fine details. 

And the best season for Niagara? Each has its own claim. 
Winter sometimes gives the place an arctic picturesqueness, a 
dazzling semi-immobility, utterly unlike its affluent, multi- 
colored summer aspect; but one could hardly wish to see it 
only in winter, or in winter first of all. It is most gorgeously 
multicolored, of course, when its ravine and its islands com- 
memorate its long-dead Indians by donning the war-paint of 
autumn. And it is most seductively fair in early spring. 
Then, at the beginning of May, when the shrubs are leafing 
and the trees are growing hazy, its islands are the isles of 
paradise. This is the time of the first wild flowers. Spread 
beneath the forest that still admits the sun-floods through its 
canopies, massed in the more open glades, and wreathed along 
the edges of pathways and shores, they fill Goat Island full, 
whitely bank and carpet it — snowy trilliums in myriads, blood- 
roots, dicentras, smilacinas, and spring-beauties, varied by 




Beneath the Forest of the Islands. 

rose-tinted spring-cresses and yellow uvularias, and underlaid 
by drifts of violets. Hardly anywhere else over so large an 
area can these children of May grow in such profusion, for 
even when the sun shines hottest upon them the air is always 
delicately dampened by the spraying floods. Here nature so 
faithfully fosters them that they need not be jealously guarded 
by man. Whoever will may gather them by the armful. 

It is good to see Niagara at this time (May). But it is 
still better to see it when its trees and shrubs and vines are 
in fullest leaf and many of them in blossom. Their value is 
greatest as a setting for the endless series of large and small, 
near and distant water pictures ; and then the temperature 
invites to lingering. The very best time of all is in June. 



II. 

Above the falls the broad river runs between shores so flat 
that one wonders why it never mistakes its course ; and where 
its rapids begin, at the head of Goat Island, it is nearly a mile 
in width. For half a mile these rapids extend along both sides 
of the island, and at its farther end the waters make their 
plunge into the gorge that they have themselves created, cut- 
ting their way backward through the table-land which extends 
from Lake Erie to a point some seven miles south of Lake 
Ontario. They make this plunge as two distinct streams, with 
the broad, precipitous face of Goat Island rising between them. 
The American stream falls in an almost straight line ; the 
broader, stronger Canadian stream falls in a boldly recessed 
horseshoe curve. And there is another difference also. Just 
at this place the river-bed makes a right-angled turn around 




The Falls from Canada. 

the lifted shoulder of Goat Island ; and the Horseshoe, which 
is doing the real work of excavation, falls into the end of the 
gorge and faces northward, while the American Fall, like 
the island's bluff, faces westward, dropping its waters over the 
side of the gorge into the current that flows down from the 
Horseshoe. 

The wonderful hemicycle that is thus created measures 
almost a full mile from mainland brink to brink.* But the 

♦Precisely, it is 5,-370 feet, the Canadian Fall measuring about 3,060, 
the face of Goat Island 1,.300, and the American Fall 1,060. The narrower 
branch of this fall, between the two islands, is 150 feet in width ; yet at 
Niagara it seems so unimportant that no one has ever given it a name. 



gorge, about one hundred and seventy feet in height above 
the surface of its stream, is less than a quarter of a mile across. 
Its cliffs rise almost sheer from their slanting bases of detritus, 
naked in some spots, in a few defaced by the hand of man, but 
still for the most part clothed with hanging robes of forest. 
At first, just below the falls, they look down upon waters that 
no longer rush and foam, but slip and swing with an oily 
smoothness, exhausted by their daring leap, still too giddy 
from it to flow quite straight, and showing proofs of it in long 
twisting ropes of curdled froth. For nearly two miles their 
lethargy lasts. One may swim in this part of the Niagara 




IV/iir/^ocl Ka^ids Jrom iJie Bridge. 
10 




Whirlpool Rapids from belozv. 



River, the smallest rowboat need not fear to put out upon it, 
and the Maid of the Mist pushes past the very foot of the 
American Fall up toward the Horseshoe, until she is wrapped 
in its steamy clouds. This is because, within its gorge, the 
Niagara is the deepest river in the world. Even near the falls 
the distance from its surface to its bottom is greater than the 
distance from its surface to the top of its gorge walls — more 
than two hundred feet ; and down into these depths the falling 
sheets are carried solidly by their tremendous impetus and 
weight, leaving the face of the water almost undisturbed. 
Moreover, the current is relatively slow, because, in the two 
miles below the falls, the slant of the river bed is gentle. 

At the end of these two miles the water visibly rages again. 
In the narrowing, curving gorge it is beaten once more into 
rapids, much deeper and fiercer than those above the falls, and 
gaining somberness from the high walls that enframe them. 
At the end of another mile the channel turns at right angles 
again. But before its waters can turn with it, they dash them-' 
selves against the Canadian cliff, and swirl back and around 
in a great elbow-like basin, blindly seeking for the exit. This 
11 



is the famous Whirlpool, and it shows the Niagara in still 
another mood. Except around its edges, there is no rioting 
and splashing as in the rapids, yet there is no exhaustion as 
near the foot of the falls; instead, a deep, saturnine wrath, 
more terrible in its massive, leaden gyrations than any loud 
passion could be. And when the waters which thus dumbly 
writhe with the pain of their arrested course find the narrow 
outlet at last, their great surge outward and onward is sullen 
like their circlings within the pool. Incredibly swift and 
strong, running at a rate of some forty miles an hour, they 




Outlet of the Whirlpool. 

pile themselves up in the center of the channel, but are not 
boisterous with breakers or combs and jets of spray. These 
soon come again as the channel enlarges a little and the 
immense pressure is relaxed ; and then, three miles below the 
Whirlpool, the throttling of the river ends. Here, near Lewis- 
ton, the gorge itself ends with the limits of the more elevated 
plain through which the river is gradually cutting its backward 
way. The gorge ends, and to right and left, eastward and 
westward, the edge of the high plain stretches off as a bold 
escarpment, showing what used to be the shore-line of Ontario, 
when, a larger lake than it is to-day, it covered the lower flat 



land. And across this flat land for seven miles, until the 
present lake shore is reached, the Niagara, half a mile in 
width, flows smoothly and gently — beautiful still, but now 
with a beauty like that of many other rivers. 



III. 

Put magnitude out of your mind when you approach 
Niagara. Think of beauty instead. Think of the most beau- 
tiful things you have ever seen. Expect to see things still 




The Horse-shoe from near Falls Vieiv. 

more beautiful. Unless your senses are benumbed, you shal) 
not be disappointed. Then, gradually, truths of great size 
will dawn upon you, and coming at their proper time, they 
will impress you doubly because you will feel them as you 
ought. You will feel them as factors in greatness of beauty, 
not as facts primarily important in themselves. 

Niagara is not more unusual in magnificence than in 

design. Nature intends most of her waterfalls to be seen from 

below. Niagara she exhibits from above. It does not come 

falling into a valley whither our feet are naturally led. It goes 

13 



curving into a chasm in a plain across which we are forced to 
approach it. Of course it can be seen from below, and there 
alone it reveals the whole of its size and strength. But nature 
made this standpoint just possible of access in order that it 
might complete and emphasize impressions elsewhere gained. 







^- 




Ent7-ance to Cave of the Winds. 

We must look down upon Niagara while we are learning most 
of its lessons in regard to the beauties of flowing and falling 
water. 

And when, at the last, making our way to its base, we stand 
there precariously on narrow ledges of rock ; when, almost 
defying nature's prohibitions, we pass behind the thundering 
14 



veil of liquid glass and foam in the Cave of the Winds ; when» 
after sharing all their phases of feeling before they fell and as 
they were falling, we meet its waters again just after they have 
fallen, our little ship challenging them to touch us in so fear- 
less a fashion that again we become their comrades ; when we 
swing off from the edge of their white caldrons, exhausted 




«cr' 



American Falls from Goat Island. 

with emotion like the current that bears us back — then, be- 
cause we have already learned so many other lessons, we are 
able to appreciate the most tremendous of them all. Then we 
have really seen Niagara, because we have felt it ; and we have 
felt it because we have felt with it. Nature made no mistake 
in designing this cataract. With waters so mighty and so 
15 




The Horse-shoe Fall from Goat Island. 

varied, the logical plan, the artistic plan, was to lead through 
lesser toward greater effects. Thus the greatest win the 
sublimity of the inevitable ; and the impression made by their 
fearful splendors is enhanced by the way in which they are 
hedged about with obstacles and are briefly, dramatically shown, 
•se- * * * * * 
VI. 
In order that the high charm of mystery may not lack in 
the sum of its attractions, Niagara keeps a few things inacces- 
sible — the center of the Horse-shoe Fall, for instance, and 
16 



some of the smaller islands. But in many places it admits us 
close to very tremendous sights. At Prospect Point we stand 
only a couple of feet above the American stream, just where it 
makes its smooth downward curve. We might touch it with 
our hand as it bends, solid and glassy, over the long lip of 
rock. We can lean on the rails and note how soon its 
polished surface breaks into silvery fragments, powders into 
glistening dust ; and far beneath we can see the frosty mass 
strike the black boulders and, over and between them, flow off 
as frosted torrents into the dark-green flood of the gorge. 




The Horse-shoe Fall from Canada. 



We can also look directly across the descending curtain of 
water. So, again, we can look from the edge of Luna Island, 
on the other side of the fall ; and here, if we face about, we 
are close to the narrower stream which divides Luna from 
Goat Island and forms the roof of the Cave of the Winds. 
Each change of place, changing the angle of vision, reveals a 
different effect in the falling waters, all their effects depending, 
of course, upon the way they receive and reflect and refract 
the light. Nature could have made no better place than 
17 



Luna Island to show us what water does and how it appears 
when it falls in great volumes and is seen very near at 
hand ; for what its surface does not reveal to us, we learn at 
the foot of this fall in the Cave of the Winds. Of all the 
accessible spots in the world this must be the most remarkable, 
excepting, perhaps, one within the crater of an active volcano. 
Such testimonies as these do not need to be repeated. 
The Canadian Fall offers us new ones. It is not a teacher of 
beautiful details of fact. The grandest part of Niagara, it is, 
befittingly, the high priest of beautiful mysteries. It shows 
the poetic grandeur of vast falling waters that can not be 
closely approached. 




The Great Power House. 

Even the ledges to which we descend from Goat Island do 
not really make the Horseshoe accessible. They cross no 
part of the main Canadian stream, but merely a wide border 
of it where its current is shallow. Beyond, its bold sweep 
prevents us from looking directly across its curtain, and for- 
bids us to see deep into the great recess that varies its curve 
midway. The brow of this central arc glows with the richest 
of all Niagara's varied colors. Here the falling sheet is ex- 
ceptionally deep. Therefore, as it curves, it shows a stretch 
of palpitant, vivid green which is repeated at no other point, 
and it preserves its smoothness far below the verge where 
shallower currents almost immediately break. No one could 
wish that this great royal jewel, this immense and living 
emerald, might be approached and analyzed. It is rightly set 
18 




The Horseshoe and Micliigan Central train from Goat Island. 



in the way that the great Artifex has chosen — ardent, im- 
mutable, and forever aloof, as on the crest of the walls of 
heaven. 

Cross now to the Canadian shore. The spot where Table 
Rock broke off (about fifty years ago) puts us more nearly in 
front of the Horseshoe. Here, unless the vapors blow too 
thickly around us, we get the most astounding impression that 
Niagara gives, excepting those that will come at the bottom of 
the gorge; and even more than any of these it satisfies the 
sense of beauty. Here we can almost see into the central 
arcanum of the irregular curve. We could see into it, and we 
imagine that we could see through it into something unimagin- 
able beyond it, if only the clouds that it generates would cease 
their billowing. But, blazing white and iris-spanned if the 
sun shines, pearly white when the sky is gray, they never do 
cease, rolling upward and outward, lower or higher, rhythmical, 
mutable, but immortal. No rocky fangs show at the foot of 
this great middle current. Below are only breakers of foam, 
10 



flowing off in a river of foam, as above are cumuli of snow and 
then of mist, and, still higher, streamers of smoke, of steam, 
of gossamer. Behind these is a cliff of diamonds; in front is 
an aura of rainbows; and dominating the whole there gleams 
through the white translucencies the mobile adamant of the 
emerald brink. 

Try as we will, wait as we may, even here we can not see 
into the heart of Niagara. But here we can see it beat, and 
the organ peal of its beating fills our ears. We are wrapped 
in soft splendors, soft thunders, until the senses blend their 
testimonies. Sights and sounds, things motionless and mov- 
ing, can not be separated, and cur own being is lost in their 
illimitable rapture. No other sensation wholly physical in its 
origin can be at once as overpowering and as enchanting as 
this one. And although we know that its origin is physical, 
is terrestrial, we can not grasp the fact; the beauty that we are 
feeling is too different from any that we have ever felt before. 
It is a transfiguring of the familiar things of earth into the 
imagined things of heaven. To the eye it is a revelation of 
the divine possibilities of light and color, form, movement, and 
sound ; and to the mind it is an allegory of power and purity 
in their supreme and perfect essence. If there are walls to the 
city celestial, built cf opal, emerald, and some vast auroral 
whiteness for which we have no mortal term, and bridged for 

the feet of angels with 
arches of the seven 
pure colors, the gate- 
way through them 
must look like the 
heart of Niagara. It 
can not be more im- 
mense, more mystical, 
more sacredly re- 
splendent. It can not 
be more aerial or more 
everlasting. 



Heart of the Horseshoe 




VIII. 

At Niagara the existence of the Great Lakes benefits the 
eye as well as the imagination. If the falls were fed by rivers, 
their volume, which now varies very little, would conspicuously 
wax and wane with the changing seasons. Again, new-born 
river-waters would be thickened and discolored with sediment 
and sand. Niagara's are strained to an exquisite purity by 
their sojourn in the Western reservoirs, and to this purity they 
owe their exquisite variety of color. 

To find their blues we must look, of course, above Goat 
Island, where the sky is reflected in smooth if quickly flowing 




The Horseshoe Jrom hispiraticn Point. 

currents. But every other tint and tone that water can take 
is visible in or near the falls themselves. In the quieter parts 
of the gorge we find a very dark, strong green, while in its 
rapids all shades of green and gray and white are blended. 
The shallower rapids above the falls are less strongly colored, 
a beautiful light green predominating between the pale-gray 
swirls and the snowy crests of foam — semi-opaque, like the 



stone called aqua-marine, because infused with countless air- 
bubbles, yet deliciously fresh and bright. The tense, smooth 
slant of water at the margin of the American Fall is not deep 
enough to be green. In the sunshine it is a clear amber, and 
when shadowed, a brown that is darker, yet just as pure. But 
wherever the Canadian Fall is visible its green crest is con- 
spicuous. Far down-stream, nearly two miles away, where 
the railroad bridge crosses the gorge, it shows like a little 
emerald strung on a narrow band of pearl. Its color is not 
quite like that of an emerald, although the term must be used 
because no other is more accurate. It is a purer color, and 
cooler, with less of yellow in it — more" pure, more cool, and at 
the same time more brilliant than any color that sea-water 
takes even in a breaking wave, or that man has produced in 
any substance whatsoever. At this place, we are told, the 
current must be twenty feet deep, and its color is so intense 
and so clear because, while the light is reflected from its 
curving surface, it also filters through so great a mass of ab- 
solutely limpid water. It always quivers, this bright-green 
stretch, yet somehow it always seems as solid as stone, smoothly 
polished for the most part, but, when a low sun strikes across 
it, a little roughened, fretted. That this is water, and that 
the thinnest smoke above it is water also, who can believe ? 
In other places at Niagara we ask the same question again. 
From a distance 'the American Fall looks quite straight. 
When we stand beside it we see that its Ime curves inward and 
outward, throwing the falling sheet into bastion-like sweeps. 
As we gaze down upon these, every change in the angle of 
vision and in the strength and direction of the light gives a 
new effect. The one thing that we never seem to see, below 
the smooth brink, is water. Very often the whole swift prec- 
ipice shows as a myriad million inch-thick cubes of clearest 
glass or ice or solidified light, falling in an envelop of starry 
spangles. Again, it seems all diamond-like or pearl-like, or 
like a flood of flaked silver, shivered crystal, or faceted ingots 
of palest amber. It is never to be exhausted in its variations. 
It is never to be described. Only, one can always say, it is 
protean, it is most lovely, and it is not water. 
22 




The America}! Pall from Canada. 

Then, as we look across the precipice, it may be milky in 
places, or transparent, or translucent. But where its mass 
falls thickly it is all soft and white — softer than anything else 
in the world. It does not resemble a flood of fleece or of 
down, although it suggests such a flood. It is more like a 
crumbling avalanche, immense and gently blown, of smallest 
snowflakes ; but, again, it is not quite like this. Now we see 
that, even apart from its main curves, no portion of the swiftly 
moving wall is flat. It is all delicately fissured and furrowed, 
by the broken edges of the rock over which it falls, into the 
suggestion of fluted buttresses, half-columns, pilasters. And 
the whiteness of these is not quite white. Nor is it consistently 
iridescent or opalescent. Very faintly, elusively, it is tinged 
with tremulous stripes and strands of pearly gray, of vaguest 
straw, shell-pink, lavender, and green — inconceivably ethereal 
hues, shy ghosts of earthly colors, abashed and deflowered, 
we feel, by definite naming with earthly names. They seem 
hardly to tinge the whiteness ; rather, to float over it as a misty 
bloom. We are loath to turn our eyes from them, fearing they 
may never show again. Yet they are as real as the keen 
emerald of the Horseshoe. 

— Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer in The Century. 
23 




Geological Section of Niagara I'alls. 



THE RECORD OF THE ROCKS. 

When one has recovered from the first emotional effects of 
the grand spectacle of Niagara Falls, and has realized some- 
what of its unique combination of beauty, majesty, and power, 
the spirit of inquiry is aroused and excited the more one sees 
the region in detail. One appreciates that Niagara is more 
than a spectacle ; that it is a wonderful illustration of the 
evolution and operation of forces that have been working since 
the world's day-dawn ; that the precipitous cliffs of the deep 
cation show the edges of the leaves of the great stone-book 
of nature that, unfolded and rightly interpreted, reveal the 
history of millions of years of the past, before man appeared 
upon the earth. One invariably asks why and how came this 
great cataract, the greatest natural wonder of the world? 
What is the history of this great river or strait ? What the 
story of this deep and narrow gorge it has carved out of the 
rocks? It should be more interesting than any tale of unreal 
personages, and of imagined events ; but here the barest out- 
line must sufBce of a history of aeons that requires a volume for 
adequate elucidation. 

The facts and the forces of nature are nicely balanced. Our 
standards are two-fold — absolute and relative. Man is proud, 
above all things, of his own existence and powers. He stands 
at the foot of Niagara or of Mt. Everest and feels his puny 
six feet dwarfed into utter insignificance ; yet on a six-foot 
globe a grain of sand will represent the mountain, and this 
paper is thicker in comparison than the height of the great 
cataract. So level is the watershed of the great lakes that it 
would take but little tilting of the saucer to spill the contents 
in any direction. 

Niagara is geologically young. It had no existence in the 
early days when Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron, 
smaller than they now are, poured their waters out to the 
north or eastward. Lake Erie was not, and there was little. 
if anything, of what is now I>ake Ontario. Then came 
the glacial period, when the great ice sheet of the north, 
thousands of feet thick, came down even as far as the Ohio 
River, carving new channels and plowing out Superior, 
25 



Huron, and Michigan to greater depths and extent. Cut the 
south winds rallied and drove back the bold invader, slowly 
but surely, never since to return from its Greenland fastnesses. 
These three great lakes were filled again as the ice field 
melted and receded to the northeast, still covering and blocking 
the valleys of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence. They found 




American Fall J ram below Goat Island. 



their outlet by the valley of the Trent into Lake Ontario 
(Iroquois, the geologists term the glacial lake), and thence to 
the sea through the Mohawk and Hudson. It was but a 
feeble stream that ran from the little lake at the eastern end 



of Erie down to Iroquois, tumbling over the escarpment or 
beach near St. David's, west of Queenston, 

Some thousands of years later the St. Lawrence ran un- 
hindered to the sea, and lowered the level of Ontario until its 
waters no longer sought the Mohawk. The slow and gradual 
tilting of the strata, still going on, closed the outlet of the 
Trent, and turned the waters of the great lakes southward, 
extending Lake Huron and opening a new channel through 
Lake St. Clair and Detroit River into Lake Erie. The 
emerald flood of gem-like purity, leaving its sediment in the 
lake basins, poured over the escarpment of the old Ontario 
shore, perhaps a greater Niagara than we look upon to-day. 
Not, however, at St. David's, as before the glacial period, 
but by the new course it had cut out, and through which it 
now flows. You can go down to the Whirlpool to-day and 
see at its northern side where the old channel was cut through 
the rocky walls, and is now filled with detritus. 

How long has Niagara been carving out the gorge to the 
present falls ; how rapidly is the recession going on, and 
what and when will the end be, are questions that spring 
involuntarily to the minds and the lips of observers. Scientists 
have closely studied these questions, from Prof. James Hall 
and Sir Charles Lyell to Prof. G. K. Gilbert, the greatest 
living authority upon the glacial period, resulting in deeper 
knowledge and greater accuracy. We can not, however, speak 
of geologic as of historic years, but it is believed that ten 
thousand years may cover the period of the excavation of the 
present gorge, while before the long ages of the ice drift there 
was probably a pre-glacial Niagara. The careful measure- 
ments made for sixty years past show a retrocession of about 
five hundred feet in a century. 

To understand the processes and methods by which the 
rocky cliff has been worn away, one should visit the Cave 
of the Winds, feel the bufi"etings of wind and water, so 
vividly described by Professor Tyndall, observe how they 
have hollowed out this cave from the inferior strata, followed 
by the fall of the massive limestone above, fragments of 
which are strewn along the talus of the cliffs. It is only after 



a personal experience of this kind and visits to the different 
parts of the falls, and to the Whirlpool Rapids, that one 
begins to realize the weight and the power of the fifteen 
million cubic feet that pass over the falls every minute. 

The accompanying diagram gives an excellent idea of the 
geological structure of Niagara, and shows how the superior 
strata of hard limestone, spared by the falls themselves, in 
large degree, is undermined until it falls as Table Rock on 
the Canada side fell.* It also shows how the fragments of 
rock at the bottom of the water are used to grind out the 
massive rock as we can see in the '' pot holes" of smaller and 
more familiar streams. Professor Shaler aptly compares the 
process to "a great auger boring away upon some soft 
material, the tool while turning being drawn slowly across the 
surface. In the similitude, the whirling waters at the base 
of the cascade, with their armament of stones, represent the 
auger, and the wide field of strata which have been carved, 
the material which is bored by the moving tool." 

At the present rate of recession the falls will have moved 
southward about a mile in the next thousand years, and as the 
dip of the strata is also southward, the height of the cataract 
will then be considerably diminished and the descent of the 
rapids above increased to the same extent. As, however, we 
have now learned to put some of this tremendous power in 
harness, and transmit it electrically to a distance, it is quite 
possible that this and other artificial means may be used to 
ultimately preserve it and avoid its draining of Lake Erie. 



*In the picture on page 26 the large rock called the " Rock of 
Ages" is a fragment of the massive Niagara limestone fallen from 
above. In the picture of the gorge, on page 14, the Niagara lime- 
stone may be followed at the top and the bed of Medina sandstone 
along the upper edge of the talus. 




NIAGARA. 
Proud swaying pendant of a crystal chain, 

On fair Columbia's rich and bounteous breast. 
With beaded lakes that necklace-like retain 

Heaven's stainless blue with golden sunlight blest! 
What other land can boast a gem so bright! 

With colors born of sun and driven spray— 
A brooch of glory, amulet of might, 

Where all the irised beauties softly stray. 
Ay, more— God's living voice, Niagara thou! 

Proclaiming wide the anthem of the free ; 
The starry sky the crown upon thy brow. 

Thy ceaseless chant a song of Liberty. 
But this thy birthright, this thy sweetest dower, 

Yon arching rainbow— Love still spanning Power. 
— Wallace Bruce. 



NIAGARA. 

Majestic torrent, God hath set His seal 

Of beauty, might, and grandeur on thy brow, 

For signs of these to see, and hear, and feel,— 
Beneath His shining sky, transcendent thou ! 

—IVm. C. Richards. 

The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain 

While I look upward to thee. It would seem 

As if God power'd thee from His " hollow hand " 

And hung His bow upon thine awful front, 

And spoke in that loud voice which seem'd to Him 

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake 

The sound of many waters, and had bade 

Thy flood to chronicle the ages back 

And notch His cent'ries in the eternal rocks. 

— _/. G, C. Brainard. 



I dreamt not I should wander here 

In inusing awe ; should tread the wondrous world, 

See all its store of inland waters hurled 

In one vast volume down Niagara's steep. 

Or calm behold them, in transparent sleep 

Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed 

Their evening shadow o'er Ontario's bed. 

— Moore. 

The walk about Goat Island at Niagara Falls is probably 
unsurpassed in the world for wonder and beauty. 

— Charles Dudley Warner. 



To paint the glories that come and go upon the falling, 
rushing waters, the artist must dip his brush in the rainbow, 
and when he has done his best he will not be believed by 
those who have not seen his subject with their own eyes. 

— A rt Journal. 

Days should be spent here in deep and happy seclusion, 
protected from the burning heat of the sun and regaled by 
lovely scenes of Nature, and the music of the sweetest waters, 
and in fellowship, at will, with the mighty Falls. Long, long 
I stayed, but all time was too short. I went, and I returned, 
and knew not how to go ! 

— Rev. Andrew Reed. 




The pure beauty of elegance and grace is the grand char- 
acteristic of the Falls. It is supremely artistic, a harmony, a 
masterpiece. The lower half of the watery wall is shrouded 
in the steam of the boiling gulf — a veil never rent or lifted. 
At its core this eternal cloud seems fixed and still with excess 
of motion — still and intensely white. 

— Henry Jatjies^ Jr. , in Portraits of Places. 



These distinctive qualities — the great variety of the indige. 
nous perennials and annuals, the rare beauty of the old woods, 
31 



and the exceeding loveliness of the rock foliage — I believe to 
be the direct effect of the Falls, and as much a part of its 
majesty as the mist-cloud and the rainbow. 

— Frederick Law Olmstead. 





I think, with tenderness, of all the lives that opened so 
fairly there, the hopes that reign in the glad young hearts, the 
measureless tide of joy that ebbs and flows with the arriving 
and departing trains. Elsewhere there are carking cares of 
business and of fashions, there are age and sorrow and heart- 
break, but here only youth, faith, rapture. 

— W. D. Ho wells in Their Wedding Journey. 
3:3 



When the real energies of Niagara have been recognized 
and the relation between those energies and the might of 
terrestrial gravity is understood, the mind must be awed by 
the stupendous significance of Niagara. 

— Richard A. Proctor. 



The sylvan perfume, the gayety of the sunshine, the mild- 
ness of the breeze that stirred the leaves overhead, and the 
bird-singing that made itself felt amid the roar of the rapids, 
and the solemn, incessant plunge of the cataract, m.oved their 
hearts and made them children with the boy and the girl who 
stood beside them — who stood for a moment and then broke 
into joyful wonder. 

— W. D. Hozvells in Niagara Revisited. 



MY LAST DAY AT NIAGARA, 
I sat upon Table Rock, and felt as if suspended in the 
open air. Never before had my mind been in such perfect 
unison with the scene. There were intervals, when I was 
conscious of nothing but the great river, rolling calmly into 
the abyss, rather descending than precipitating itself, and 
acquiring tenfold majesty from its unhurried motion. It came 
like the march of Destiny. It was not taken by surprise, but 
seemed to have anticipated, in all its course through the broad 
lakes, that it must pour their collected waters down this height. 
The perfect foam of the river, after its descent, and the evei-- 
varying shapes of mist, rising up, to become clouds in the 
sky, would be the very picture of confusion, were it merely 
transient, like the rage of a temp.st. But when the beholder 
has stood awhile, and perceived no lull in the storm, and con- 
siders that the vapor and the foam are as everlasting as the 
rocks which produce them, all this turmoil assumes a sort of 
calmness. It soothes, while it awes the mind. 

— Nathaniel Hawthorne. 



r — 


pr M 


^W»^ 


r 

%> 



From the Arch Bridge. 

TO SEE NIAGARA. 

Niagara offers many scenes of marvelous beauty, of great 
variety, and of striking picturesqueness, that one should see 
under the varying conditions of sunlight and shadow, calm 
and storm, and under the silvery moonlight. Every mile of 
Niagara River, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, especially 
from the Rapids above the Falls to the end of the gorge at 
Lewiston and Queenston, is filled with interesting and charm- 
ing scenes. However long the traveler may linger, new 
beauties and new points of interest will present themselves, 
and the greater will be his appreciation of this wonderful scene. 

He has seen a grand sight who has looked out from Falls 
View, where the Michigan Central trains stop, but let him not 
think he has yet seen Niagara Falls, for the great cataract is 
many-sided, and should be seen from all points. The tourist 
will never know its majestic grandeur until he has stood below 
and seen its flood of waters pour from the very vault of heaven. 
He will never know Niagara's power until he has passed 




From Sister Islands. 



behind its watery veil and felt the buffeting of its prisoned air, 
or stood beside the Whirlpool Rapids and felt the utter im- 
potence of man. He will never know its indescribable beauty 
until he has watched the very center 
of the Horse shoe and wooed the 
spirit of the waters, or wandered in 
the wooded aisles of Goat Island, or 
by the fairy cascades of the Three 
Sisters. He will never understand 
its wonderful voice until he has 
stood at the foot of the Great 
Horseshoe and listened to its thun- 
der, that Eugene Thayer, the fam- 
ous organist, declared was ' ' not a 
roar, but the divinest music on 
earth." 

The banks of the river upon either side of the Falls have 
been reserved by the Ontario and New York State Govern- 
ments as free public parks, so that the expense of a visit to 
Niagara has been shorn 
of exorbitant charges. 
The hotel accommoda- 
tions at Niagara are 
ample, excellent in 
quality, and reasonable 
in price. On the Ameri- 
can side the International 
and Cataract are open 
from May to about the 
first of November, while 
the Kaltenbach, the Pros- 
pect Ho-jse, Imperial, 
and other hotels are open 
the year round. 

A visit to the Cave of 
the Winds, with guide 
and dress, costs a dollar, and the similar trip under the Horse- 
shoe Falls, on the Canada side, fifty cents ; the round trip on 




On Goat Island. 




On Goat Island. 



the inclined railway costs ten cents, 
and upon the Maid of the Mist, 
fifty cents. The toll over the 
new steel arch Foot and Car- 
riage Bridge is ten cents in 
one direction, or fifieen cents 
for the round trip. The rate 
for vehicles is regulated by 
the number of passengers. 
The hack fares at Niagara 
Falls are regulated by law 
and are very reasonable, while 
vans make the tour of the entire 
State Reservation, with the privilege 
of stopping off at any point of interest, for twenty-five cents. 
Besides the Lewiston Branch of the New York Central, an 
electric railway on either side of the river affords splendid 
opportunities to see the river, including the rapids, the falls, 
the whirlpool, and the gorge in detail and to the best advan- 
tage. That on the Canada side runs from Chippawa, on the 
Niagara Division of the Michigan Central, through the Queen 
Victoria Park, past the Horse-shoe Fall, and along the brink of 
the gorge, by the whirlpool, to 
Brock's Monument on Queens- 
ton Heights, where the slope is 
descended to the steamer dock 
at Queenslon. The line is 13^ 
miles long, and the rate from 
Chippawa to Queenston forty 
cents, or seventy-five cents for 
the round trip. 

On the American side the 
cars start from the Soldiers' 
INIonument at the foot of Falls 
Street and gradually descend 
the gorge just above the Canta- 
liver Bridge. From this point 
to Lewiston the river bank is On Luna Island. 
36 




closely followed but a few feet abov'e the water, passing directly 
by the Whirlpool Rapids, the Whirlpool itself, and the long 
succession of the lower rapids, emerging from the gorge oppo- 
site Queenston Heights. The fare one way is fifty cents, or 
seventy-five cents for the round trip. 

The fare by the Lewiston Branch of the New York Central 
is twenty-five cents one way and forty cents for the round trip, 
excepting from June ist to September 30th, when the one-way 
rate is twenty cents, and for the round trip, twenty-five cents, 

A round-trip rate of seventy cents is also made from 
Niagara Falls to Lewiston by the New York Central, return- 
ing via the Gorge route 

By the Canadian Electric Railway over the Upper Arch 
Bridge to the Horse-shoe Fall and Chippewa, thence along the 
Canadian side at the top of the bluff overlooking the river to 
Queenston, across the lower Suspension Biidge to Lewiston, 
and thence back by the Gorge route on the American side — 
from Niagara Falls and back to starting point the fare is$r.oo. 

Bear in mind, however, that the governments of New York 
and Canada have made free forever the shores on both sides 
of the falls themselves and that the finest views are obtainable 
wiihout any extra expense whatever. 




Down the Niagara Gorge. 



(The cuts on pages 16 and 19 shew the location 
of the Michigan Central train at Falls View.) 



37 



3IAP OF 

:nia(jara palls 

AND TICINITY' ^^rfark,- 

SHOWrXG BOL^TE OF THE ;5:QuiStt;^ .^- 

M ichigan (C entra l linri^ 

The JS'iagara Falls Route T 



1^1 1 AGAR A FALLS _ 





•gen. PRIOEAUX'S LANDING 



'•^%s^ 



., AGARA -"9 

GARRISONED U.S. FT. 

TRAD-ING POST BY LA SALLE, 1678-A FT,- BY' 
5C NONVILLE.1G87- ABANDONED, 1 688-REBUILT.J ?25 
jCAPTUREO BY THE BRITISH, DEC, 1 9,1 813 
/*YOUNGSTOWN M A P OF 

Unt BY THE BRITISH 1313 „ I ST O R I clTl AG A R A 

.SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL POINTS OF INTEREST 
IN CONNECTION WITH 
THE HISTORY OF THE NIAGARA RIVER 
^ AND 

.. ^^"^^ VICINITY 



Nt:t^^^^' 



^:^^PiSft^^^ 



-tne' 



iS'^^^^^i^SA 



BATTLE OF -'^ H-iJ^i'H'A, , _ ,^._,. 

■ ,,„. ^A,. al^E/VNep,^, A329 

o\\r/^>'^'*'lvr "^"REE MOUNTAINS 

^« HOLE «AP,DS 
^^"■'S H0^eV,ASSACRE 
SLOCK H '''V 



fiNO 



AND 



CO. 




cP 



y^ 



whirlpool' 
WHIDLPOOL RAPIDS' 

BATTLE OF^-VoS 

LUNOY'S LANE'% 

OR BRIDGEWATER 

JULY 25,1814 . 

FALLS OF NIAGARA 




x,^^ 






>v 




SAILOR'S BATTERY 
fl'SBATTERV 

•* 181* 

^PORT TOMPKINS ^^t'* 

ffl'-'<CK R0CK^e'*°"' 
^"'LL AGE OF BLACK ROCK 
GEN.ALEXSMYTH , 

OLLECTEO AN ARMY / 
HERE TO INVADE — ^ 
CAMAOA. ISTz' 
FT. PORTER 



BURNT BY/fl 
RJ^fiJiaiS 




INTERNATIONAL HOTEL. 

This is one of the largest as well as one of the oldest and 
best-known hotels at Niagara Falls, located on the corner of 
Main and Falls streets, with a frontage and tennis court on 
the State Reservation. It accommodates 500 guests. Rates, 
per day, $3 up; per week, $17.50 and upwards; American 
plan, D. Isaacs, Manager. 




CATARACT HOUSE 

Located corner of Main and Bridge streets, adjoining the 
State Reservation along the American Rapids, opposite Goat 
Island. Rooms en suite, with bath. Accommodates 500 
guests. Rates, $3, $4.50, and $5.50 per day on the Amer- 
ican plan ; $2 and upwards, European plan. Special weekly 
and monthly rates. D. Isaacs, Manager. 








i^ro 



m 




PROSPECT HOUSE 
Is pleasantly located on high ground at the junction of Jeffer- 
son Avenue and Second Street, near the State Reservation. 

—^ ~"~~" Accommodates 150 guests. 

Rates, 83 per day up, on the 
American plan. Rooms single 
or en suite. Separate dining- 
room table for each room. 
D. Isaacs, Proprietor. 




■^.M 



HOTEL IMPERIAL 

On Falls Street, corner of Second, between the railroad 
and the Falls. Elegant apartments en suite, with 
Accommodates 400 guests. Rates, $2.50 per day; $ 
week and upwards. C. N. Owen, Proprietor. 

42 



station 

bath. 

14 per 



^^ 









. m 



THE KALTENBACH — Is a quiet, home-like hotel, noted for its 
cuisine and cellar. It is located at 24 Buffalo Street, between 
Main and Second streets, fronting upon the State Reservation. 
It accommodates fifty guests. Rates, $3 per^day. American 
plan. A. Kaltenbach, -Proprietor. 




THE TOWER HOTEL -Is on River Way, fronting on the State 
Reservation. The tower affords a magnificent outlook over 
the falls and rapids. Accommodates 150 guests. Rates, $2 to 
$3, American. L. A. Boore, Proprietor. 

43 








COLUMBIA HOTEL, 



Located corner Niagara and First streets. Entirely new, built 
of brick, with all modern improvements. Electric lighted and 
call bells, steam heated and other conveniences. Accommo- 
dates 150. Rates, $2 per day and upwards. Weekly rates 
upon application. Wm. G. White, Manager. 




THE TEMPERANCE HOUSE, 

and pleasantly located, opposite Michigan Central 



Quiet 

Station, Second Street 

connection with house 



Rates, $1.50 and $2 per day. Livery 
H. Hubbs, Proprietor. 



44 



Location. 
NIAGARA FALLS HOUSE, 338 Main St.—Kobt. Furgison 
HARVEY HOUSE, 327 Third Street— J. Maloney 



Rates 
Capacity, per Day. 
5 $2.00 

$2.00 to 3.00 



SALT'S NEW HOTEL, 355 Second Street-S. J. Tobey 75 

MALEY HOUSE, 723 Third Street— V. Neidhardt 40 

UNITED STATES HOTEL, Falls Street— A. Hayes 50 

ATL ANTIQUE, Main and Niagara— S. K. Deitrick 75 

COLON ADE HOTEL, 221 Niagara— John Donnelly.. ._ 50 



1.50 to 2.50 

1.50 

2.00 

2.00 to 2.50 

1.50 to 2.00 



EUROPEAN HOTEL, 349 River Way— Morris Smith 50 2.00 to 2.50 

FALLS HOTEL, 312 Main Street— Wra. Jennings 40 2.00 

HOTEL SCHWARTZ, 16 Falls Street— D.W. Schwartz 30 (e) 2.00 

HOTEL CLIFTON, Falls Street— R. C. Owen 55 2.00 

HOTEL NASSAU, Falls Street— Geo. Fels. 50 3.00 

NEW YORK HOTEL, River Way— E. A. Claxton 25 1.50 

THE OAK, Falls Street-L. M. Gillis -- - SsJ'^^ J-^^g,-, 

THE WAYNE, Second Street, opposite N. Y. C— J. Roland 25 1.50 

BOARDING-HOUSE, 349 First Street— Miss M.Couway.... 20 .-. 

r.OARDING-HOUSE,213 Third Street-Mrs. A. Murray.... 20 

COTTAGE, Second Street— Mrs. Morse 30 1.-25 



NIAGARA FALLS, ONTARIO. 

Kates 
Name. Proprietoj-. Rooms, per Day. 

HOTEL SAVOY James Dickinson . 40 $2.50 to 3.00 

WINDSOR HOTEL ....James Keating.... 50 2.00 to 5.00 

AMERICAN HOTEL. ..William Ward 30 1.50 to 2.00 

ROSLI HOTEL William Klaus .... 50 1.50 to 3.00 

ARLINGTON HOTEL. .Rich. McCarr 40 1.50 to 2.00 

COLUMBIA HOTEL . . .Charles Crozier ... 20 1.50 to 2.00 
MARKET HOTEL C. J. Flynn 10 1.50 to 2.00 



Rates 

per Week. 
$8.00 up 
10.50 to 13.00 

8.00 to 10.00 

7.00 up 

7.00 up 

5.00 up 

7.00 up 




The Rapids above American Fall. 
45 




HOTEL LAFAYETTE 



Is at the Canada end of the new steel arch bridge and com- 
mands a view of both falls. All modern improvements, newly 
added verandas, and roof garden. Accommodates 75. Rates, 
12 to $3 per day, $10 to $15 per week, American plan. Michi- 
gan Central Station, Victoria Park. Harry Williams, Proprietor. 



Rates 
Capacity, per Day. 

VICTORIA HALL G. H. Young ., .55 $2.00 

PARK SIDE INN -J. O'Rourke... 40 ?.00 

PROSPECT HOUSE E.J.Fischer.. 25 1.50 

QUEEN'S PARK HOTEL. -John W^ard.... 20 1.00 

NIAGARA HOUSE A. Fischer .... 10 1.50 

ALEXANDRIA HOUSE ...Mrs. Day 25 1.50 to 2.00 



Fates 
per Week. 
$8.00 to 12.00 
10.00 up. 



10.00 to 12.00 



NIAGARA-ON-THE-I.AKE, ONTARIO. 




THE QUEEN'S ROYAL. 

A quiet, delightful summer resort (300 guests), fronting- 
on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River, in the 
midst of picturesque and historic scenes and with excellent 
facilities for boating, bathing, fishing, riding and driving, 
golf, tennis, it is but fourteen miles from Niagara Falls and 
thirty-five from Buffalo, by the Michigan Central's Niagara 
Division, and thirty miles from Toronto across the lake by 
steamer. The hotel is commodious and elegant, with a num- 
ber of charming cottages near by, with all modern conven- 
iences and with service unexcelled. Rates, $3 per day, $17.50 
per week and upwards. Winnett & Thompson, Proprietors. 



Capacity. 

THE STRATHCOXA 125 

THE OBAX W. A. Milloy 60 

DOYLE'S James Doyle 40 

AMERICAX John Campbell 30 

NIAGARA HOUSE..P. ,J. O'Xell 30 

LAKE VIEW Frank Addison 25 



Kates 


Rates 


per Day. 


per Week. 


51.00 to 2.00 


§10.00 up 


2.00 to 3.(X» 


10.50 up 


1.00 


5.00 


1.00 


5.U0 


1..50 


7.00 


1.00 


7.00 



;* 




STOP-OVER 



Niagara Falls 

will be granted to Eastbound 

passengers and original purchasers 
of first-class limited, second-class, 
tourist, and round trip tickets, and 
to holders of party tickets for the 
transportation of other than theatrical and amusement compa- 
nies, issued from points west of and including St. Thomas and 
Hamilton, Ontario, and reading 

Via New York Central & Hudson River and West Shore 
Railroads to Rochester and East thereof ; 

Via Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and Erie Rail- 
roads to Elmira and points East ; 

Via Lehigh Valley to Geneva and points East ; and 

Via Pennsylvania Railroad to Emporium Junction and 
points East. 

Such tickets must be deposited with the ticket agent at 
the station, Niagara Falls, New York, immediately upon 
arrival there, for which he \v\\l receipt. They will be sur- 
rendered upon application within thirty minutes of schedule 
time of train upon which the holder is to depart. 

The maximum limit of such stop-over is ten days from 
time of deposit of tickets. 

On foand-trip tickets the going transit or final return 
limit will not be extended. 

Baggage may be checked to Niagara Falls, New York, on 
presentation of through limited tickets to points beyond upon 
which stop-over may be granted under the above rules. 

Chicago, May 15, 1903. 



LBD'05 H132 7 



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48 



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MAR 78 

'^■!^ N. MANCHESTER. 
^-^^^ INDIANA 



